The Lap of Africa

Motorcycle travels around the continent

Hello
Abyssinia
The promised land, certainly in my eyes after the
adversities of the Dida Galgalu desert of northern Kenya.
Leaving from the rundown Kenyan side of Moyale –
isolated from the rest of the country by that lengthy and
tortuous road - and entering Ethiopia on the more relaxed
(and asphalted) side, was a straightforward procedure. The
modern Customs and Immigration buildings looked new. My
passport was scanned into a computer. Why was I thinking
this must be funded by European Development money? There
were the usual scattering of touts descending on me with
offers of “change money” or “cheap hotel,
nice” but not too hassly. It was with a slightly
euphoric ‘can’t really believe I’m
here’ sensation I checked into the budget Tourist
Hotel nearby. I had made it!

First
Impressions
Sitting on a concrete step in
the small dusty courtyard administering a little attention
on the bike in the company of two self-appointed
‘assistants’, I didn’t care what Ethiopia
was like. The St George beer was cheap, cold and
refreshing. (I bought one for an assistant, the other was a
kid.) Two women were finely chopping onions and tomatoes on
a board on the dusty ground by the only tap outside.
Savoury cooking smells floated out on the steam from the
carbon-blackened doorframe of the lean-to hotel kitchen.
Among the ambient sounds of evening in the town, a
beautiful, melodic, high-pitched female voice in Amharic,
strange to my ears, could be heard from the bar. This was
my first exposure to the music of the internationally
successful Aster Aweke. Unwinding in the warmth of the
evening, with that utterly niggle-free sense of deserved
relaxation after the ordeals of the day… I felt
suddenly infatuated with the idea of Ethiopia.
Later,
after a cold though welcome bucket shower, myself and an
Australian/Canadian couple wandered up the bustling main
street, lit just by lanterns from roadside stalls and
restaurants, looking for something to eat. She was a
vegetarian which meant we tried a few places before
settling on one, giving me an opportunity to be gradually
introduced to this different culture.

And different
culture it was. The animated, chatting faces were the first
and obvious distinction for me – finer featured and
lighter skinned than the rest of sub-Saharan Africa. The
voices too, the Amharic language sounding closer to Arabic
in its pronunciation from the back of the throat. Strains
of the quite identifiable, attractive Ethiopian music came
from everywhere. Years before I had been exposed to music
compilations of 70’s Ethiopian jazz –
‘Ethiopiques’ - issued by Francis Falceto an
Ethiopian music specialist, some of it so beguiling, and
here I was delighted to recognise familiar rhythms and
instruments (“yes I’m sure its the
clarinet”), though the arrangements were more
contemporary, drifting across from shop counters and
doorways. In the yellow light, taking in the beautiful
faces, and longer, sometimes auburn hair on the women, I
found myself in a state of wonderment at how unlike this
all was to any other culture I’d been in. Of course I
was in a slightly exalted state of heightened appreciation.
And there were other Europeans. A tall, pony-tailed, Dutch
fellow dressed in khaki coloured 'High Street safari
travel-chic' was delivering his thoughts, in fluent
American-accented English, on his few weeks travelling in
Ethiopia, to an Australian/Canadian couple. He and his
quieter blond partner clad in orange who was a clinical
psychologist (he worked in advertising. I found this out
when joining them for a drink in the bar later) were
looking for transport heading south and asked me with
(disguised) trepidation about the road ahead. From
experience, I knew the effect negative reports had on me
(and as a practice I no longer ask this question unless
necessary) so told him it was fine, and not as bad as its
reputation. While not exactly the whole truth,
there’s little point in stoking pre-trip anxieties.
We exchanged Kenyan shillings for Ethiopian birr. I found I
had to be on my toes - he seemed to have few scruples in
getting a good deal for himself. The local tout standing
glumly on the sidelines having been done out of his
commission, came to my assistance with advice on a fair
rate.
Eating
On the trip through Africa south from the Maghreb (the
stretch of Arab Africa north of the Sahara) food had been
largely and solely a source of nourishment. Choice - and
imagination - was an extravagance few could indulge.
Various starches – cassava, potatoes, rice and the
ubiquitous maize – were usually accompanied by some
form of protein, perhaps a (gristly) meat or fish sauce.
Vegetables were a rarity. (Of course South Africa was an
exception to this rule, where it is possible to eat the
finest and freshest food imaginatively prepared, and drink
the finest of wines… and develop the biggest of
bellies.)

The food here was a revelation. I had read of Ethiopian
cuisine being quite different from their neighbors. It is
based on ‘injera’
- a large, grey, pancake with the appearance of a well-used
dishcloth – which is made from
‘tef’,
the grain rich in minerals and tolerant to the
unreliability of the rains, grown only in the highlands of
Ethiopia. This is served with little dollops of stewed
meat, pulses and vegetables on it and eaten communally with
the fingers (of the right hand. It is advised to keep your
left hand tucked under the table.). On my dining
partners’ advice I went for the popular
‘tibs’,
small roasted pieces of mutton, with stewed lentils on the
injera too. I loved it, the slightly sour injera used to
mop up the meat and lentils. The taste doesn’t
apparently appeal to all. The Dutchman wasn’t a fan,
and had asked me earlier what was in store in Kenya!

That's As Far
As You're Going!
The
next day I took off in a light hearted mood, still with a
slightly elevated sense of unreality, after what my bike
had undergone the previous day through the desert. So after
about an hour cruising on asphalt road in cooler
temperatures at the higher altitude (no red light), it
wasn’t with any great alarm I reacted to the bike
losing compression and stopping. That was it. It had given
up. But it had got me through the tough bit.

After a two
hours on this very quiet highway, I stopped a truck, agreed
a price of ten dollars and we loaded the bike onto the
back, continuing the few hundred kilometres to Yavello. The
two lads in their ‘Isuzu’ - the generic name
given to any truck - were on their way there to pick up a
load of cattle. Like most long distance drivers I was later
informed, they chewed ‘chat’
leaves constantly, a mild amphetamine that grows in
southern and eastern parts of the country. We were driving
through hilly countryside, sparsely populated, and fairly
barren. And poor. Some of the hills were clad in scrubby
bush. We stopped once at bags of charcoal stacked on the
roadside sold by nomads (right).
So here I was with my bike, luggage, and gear stacked at a
fuel station on the main road five kilometres from the town
of Yavello. Now what. A curious, and growing, audience was
drifting over though I felt no bother. In the past this has
not been a problem for me. If it gets too intrusive, I
would nominate an apparent ringleader to be the
‘askari’
and he’d good naturedly keep order, knowing there was
a reward in it.

Now at a point near civilisation I set about establishing
as far as possible what kind of situation I was in. I took
out the spark plug and turned the engine over. Water
spurted out. From my basic mechanical knowledge I
understood one thing - the cylinder head gasket, a seal
that separates the cooling and lubrication systems, had to
be perished. Water had got into the oil, and thus the
cylinder, which was not good. I wasn’t confident my
abilities, and probably tools, would stretch to taking off
the cylinder head. All I knew was the damage was serious
and the bike unrideable. My task was now to somehow get me,
the gear and bike the six hundred kms to Addis Abeba where
I’d hope to find a competent mechanic to help
determine the seriousness of the damage, and what could be
done.

Unscheduled
Stop in Yavello
The
three days it took attempting to find a truck heading north
provided an interesting opportunity to get acquainted with
an aspect of southern Ethiopia. The town of Yavello, a few
dusty streets disappearing into the surrounding hills, did
have a few guesthouses, in one of which (named something
like ‘Green’) I based myself. Over the few
days, I recruited two aides to help me find a truck going
north. Mohammed (“I want to become a
Protestant”) was the gentle mannered older of the two
with very good English and Luego, a younger ambitious guy
whose English aspired to fluency but needed a lot more
practice. He thought he was better than he actually was,
cracking jokes and telling stories (with him featuring
favourably of course in a transparent attempt to impress)
but I didn’t understand half of it and tired of
asking him to repeat, so just nodded and smiled. He was
full of energy and good entertainment. From a small village
near the traditional area of Jinka further west, his
education had been sponsored by a Scottish priest, for
which he was very grateful, and was trying to make it as a
tour guide. Though just nineteen Luego had apparently
already successfully undertaken a few tours, and was in
thrall to the image that came with driving the vehicles.
More than once he stopped me in my tracks to point
excitedly at a new model Landcruiser, and elaborate on its
features. “I would love to drive one,”
he’d say with desire.

The time in
Yavello was spent chasing up leads and rumours about
trucks. It would be too expensive to hire one, so the lads
were on the lookout for a part load going north. A few were
carrying cattle and were happy to take me and my things for
a very reasonable price. A definite “No”.
Time was also spent getting my
daypack repaired (left), and trying to find a phone. I
discovered buying a local SIM card which I had been doing
so far - between five dollars in neighboring Kenya to free
in Mozambique - was close to forty dollars in Ethiopia,
which didn’t make it an option for a short stay. The
only internet in town was in the office of the British NGO,
C.A.R.E. which kindly let me send off a communication after
a few days to Self Help in Ireland and their office in
Addis Abeba.
Coffee
Ceremony
After
lunch one hot day, I wandered back to the guesthouse for a
snooze. The two lads were around town on the lookout,
making enquiries and there wasn’t a lot I could do. A
pungent scent of church incense, maybe frankincense,
drifted across the courtyard. One of the
‘bargirls’ – working girls – from
the guesthouse bar, sitting under an umbrella, beckoned me
over for a coffee. Abyssinia is known as the birthplace of
coffee. The story is that a pair of monks, observing the
energetic and excitable behavior of their goats after
eating the berries off a particular bush, tried some
themselves but threw them into the fire due to the
bitterness. Of course the aroma of the roasting berries, or
beans, encouraged them to try again, this time stewing them
in water. The rest is history.

At the end of a concrete-block passageway in the shade of
her large umbrella, dressed in a traditionally embroidered
white cotton smock, Mahalet was seated cross-legged on a
large cushion, rubber sandals kicked off to the side. She
gestured to a low three legged stool, and I squat sat,
beginning to realise I was witnessing a regular ritual
here. Coffee is held in great reverence in Ethiopia, the
coffee ceremony a not unusual practice after a meal. And
here it was. The array spread out before her included a
stand of flickering coloured candles, the molten wax
running down the side of the candleholder creating an
artistic sculpture. Some Chinese incense sticks smoldered
their wispy trails. Purple Bougainvillea petals lay
scattered across the ground. A small iron brazier with
pieces of glowing charcoal heated a metal plate, on which a
handful of coffee beans were beginning to smoke, letting
off that distinctive, powerfully recognisable roasted
aroma. Three delicate little coffee cups on a tray awaited.
It seemed to me a shrine. And she the celebrant. The
priestess.

Mahalet lifted the metal plate off the brazier, slid the
roasted beans into a small earthenware pot, or mortar, and
pound and grinded them slowly and methodically with an iron
pestle for about a minute. Bending forward she tossed the
ground coffee into a kettle of water and put that on the
coals to heat.

It was an experience to watch this ‘bargirl’,
in the shade in the heat of the afternoon sun, conducting
her ritual. If I weren't there, she would be doing it for
herself. Occasionally she would lean forward and adjust
slightly the burning candles, breaking off and arranging
the wax stalactites carefully around the candleholder base,
as if this was part of the custom. When steam issued from
the kettle’s spout she poured a cup for each of us,
the liquid black and viscous, and added sugar. It tasted
like… the original coffee!

Coffee
and 'Chat'
A
bundle of green leaves and twigs stuck out of a plastic bag
next to her, and she pulled out a few, offering some to me.
Why not, I thought, as a ‘cultural experience’?
This was ‘chat’,
and I had seen it chewed all over town at this time of day
after the main meal, in the ‘siesta’ time. The
trick I was instructed, was to pluck the softer more
succulent leaves from the stalk – the harder, older
leaves were more bitter – and stuff the bundle into
the side of your mouth, barely chewing, more sucking the
juice, gradually letting it disintegrate. A mouthful might
last ten to twenty minutes slowly masticated.

I had no pressing issues to attend to, so there we sat for
the afternoon, chewingchatinterspersed with
the odd cup of coffee. Occasionally Mahalet would toss onto
the coals some grains of ‘itan’,
dried pebbles of gum collected from a tree found locally,
which sent up clouds of the pungent scent I had first
detected on arriving. Now and again I was offered peanuts
to chew while the wad ofchatwas stuffed into
the side of my mouth, which softened the slight bitterness.
While I could feel no obvious or discernable effect from
thechat,
the totally relaxing experience of sitting on the three
legged stool, chewing, sipping coffee, being present at
this ritual as the heat of the afternoon gradually
diminished, in this environment, was enchanting. We had
little to say to each other due to the difference in
language. Occasionally we were joined by a few of the other
staff who’d come over for somechat,
including me at times in conversation, or nattering away in
Oromo, the local dialect.

After a couple of hours I got up to deal with a visitor
with possible information for me, and recognised the
slightest feeling of disorientation, not at all unpleasant,
which could have been exacerbated by having been squatting
in the enclosed space for that length of time. As evening
drew in, a whole afternoon of chewing behind me, though not
hungry I reckoned it was time to eat while the restaurants
were still serving and set off with my two assistants
Mohammed and Luego. And now I could feel a definite
‘buzz’ striding into town. Very pleasant. The
whole afternoon was an experience – made the more so,
as these things can be, because it was impromptu.

On the
Move
Mid-morning the following day Mohammed excitedly ran into
the courtyard with news he had a truck. And it was leaving
now! I grabbed my gear, paid the bill – leaving a
decent tip for Mahalet – and jumped into the truck
waiting outside, engine running. While driving the five kms
out to my bike on the main road, we agreed a figure of
thirty dollars to Awasa, a city halfway to Addis Abeba.

And a slow, laborious journey it was. Twelve hours,
stopping at different spots to load more bags of maize or
wheat or tef, until just the top part of the bike was
visible. It wasn’t going to move anyway. One stop was
to collect ten bags at a nomad village (below). The driver
and two others with me in the cab - it was a tight squeeze
- were pleasant company despite our difficulty in
communicating. They wouldn’t allow me pay for my
lunch and dinner when we stopped at the Ethiopian
equivalent of a truckstop. Because it was one of two
‘fasting’ days in the week where no meat is
eaten, we were served ‘bayaiyonet’,
a large injera with various vegetable portions on it such
as lentils, beetroot, ‘shiro’
a popular chickpea sauce, maybe a bit of salad. After the
visit to the tap – every restaurant has one
convenient for diners – to wash our hands, we all
tucked in to the same plate, extra injera and sauces
arriving when needed.

I was surprised at how green the mountainous landscape
became as we drove directly north up the centre of the
country. It was so verdant – fields bursting with
crops, everywhere banana trees, water flowing in the
rivers. And the people looking healthy. This wasn’t
the stereotype many in the West have of Ethiopia. I was to
learn this country is in fact blessed with many resources
– mineral wealth, hydroelectric potential, fertile
land, abundant water in three major rivers, and of course
“thirteen months of sunshine” as the Tourist
Board boasts. The problem is 80% of the population lives on
the land, and the agriculture practiced is largely reliant
on the rains. And when they fail - that is when we get
pictures broadcast into our living room of famine victims.
Eighty million people to be fed puts too much pressure on a
system like that.

Awasa
Arriving very late into the spread out city of Awasa, I was
dropped at the Gebrekiristos hotel, the bike unloaded, and
the driver paid and thanked. I went to bed pleased to have
made it this far, without it costing too much. Despite
three pleasant days in friendly Yavello, I was becoming a
little anxious about the possibilities of progress. I had
to be in Addis Abeba in three days time.

I had heard about a campsite outside town popular with
overland travellers, Athenium. We had been unable to find
it on arrival late at night, so the following day I turned
up to see if the owners could help in pointing me towards a
truck to Addis Abeba. Knocking on the corrugated iron gate,
voices could be heard from within the compound but nobody
opened. Banging louder, there was a pause, but still no one
opened it. Hmmm. The visitors obviously have instructions.
Peering through a gap I recognised a Land Rover driver from
Switzerland I’d met in Nairobi and called out
“Simon, open the gate!” That got the desired
response, along with grins of surprise and welcome.

Help at
HandSimon was a mechanic in the
Swiss army, but of more significance, I was introduced to a
heavyset, middle-aged German relaxing on his deckchair in
the shade in front of his kitted-out, overland truck.
Herbert (pictured left, later that evening) was a motorbike
mechanic who previously had his own business and was now
the main Moto Guzzi importer into Germany. Himself and his
wife were on their way down to South Africa to open up a
KTM dealership. He was very happy to have a look at my
engine! And he had all the tools. An hour later I had
pushed my bike the thirty minutes around to Athenium
(Actually I paid a couple of young lads a few bob to push
it, my steadying hand on the back. It was hot. We stopped
halfway where I bought oranges for them from a woman under
a big tree on the side of the road. After the initial
concentration however, their focus began to flag and I had
to take over the steering.)

By
the end of the day we had the radiator, cylinder head and
cylinder out to inspect them. I knew things would be bad
– it was a question of how bad, and was it
repairable, at an affordable cost? With sharp intakes of
breath and wonder, we could see the battle damage.

Cylinder head
gasket gone, piston rings broken, and most spectacularly
– a small hole burned through the scorched cylinder
head collar, caused probably by a glowing metal particle
burning through. (The cylinder head pictured, with hole
burned through on the right.) Herbert hadn’t seen
anything as bad. As I repeated to them, I was still in awe
at how that Rotax engine had got me through 200 kms working
hard mainly in 2nd gear through the North Kenyan desert -
on the red light!

This was such
a stroke of luck meeting Herbert. It meant I now knew
exactly what needed to be replaced. My parents fiftieth
wedding anniversary was the following week and I had
decided back in Tanzania, that rather than miss seeing
Ethiopia, Sudan, Egypt, Libya at a proper pace and race
home in time for the celebration - I was the first born and
needed to be there – to break the journey and buy a
brief return flight home from Addis Abeba, coming back to
my bike to continue the trip. I was in a stronger position
now knowing what was needed. (Parts to be repatriated
pictured above.) I couldn’t thank Herbert enough. His
wife did tell me he missed that type of work and that he
was looking ten years younger, which made me feel a little
less helplessly indebted.
The Ethiopian office of the charity I am supporting,SELF HELP, kindly sent down a driver
and Toyota pickup the next morning and we lifted on the
bike, its guts and my gear, and a few hours later were
in the SELF HELP office Addis Abeba, via the new Chinese
built ring road.

After nearly a year on the bike in Africa, the previous
week in major stress struggling to get it across the Dida
Galgalu desert intact, and just a few days ago trapped in
the dusty south Ethiopian town of Yavello, the strange yet
familiar experience of walking down the main street in Dun
Laoghaire on a windy, wet and wintry Tuesday, seemed like a
parallel universe. I don’t suppose jet setters feel
like this.